Editor's Blog

The case-officer wasn’t impressed with the applicants written submissions and refused his visa application as Marketing Specialist, but Michael Saturnino’s flawless presentation at the Tribunal convinced the member he is a worthy marketing specialist, in deed.

Having to market himself as an "Advertising and Marketing Professional ANZSCO Group 2251", Michael Saturnino, laid out his circumstances candidly at a recent AATA hearing. He said he had not completed secondary school but had instead started to work and learnt his trade as a stonemason and after this he moved to a bigger role within his employer’s company in Italy, undertaking many tasks, only some of which involved marketing and promoting the company.

This lack of formal qualifications and his ‘varied experience’ had led the case-officer to refuse the visa application. Mr Saturnino had apparently provided differing descriptions of his previous employment in Italy. He however explained to the Member that the company for which he worked was a small company and did not specify staff roles in a narrow way because everyone was required to ‘do a bit of everything’.

At the hearing, Mr Saturnino and his company’s general manager cleverly focussed largely on his work in Australia and painted a detailed and impressive picture of his achievements here. The Australian company was again another small stone supply company comprising of four people including Mr Saturnino. The Tribunal heard that the company “did not have a formal marketing plan or budget but that they would discuss these issues together, often on a daily basis.”

Despite concluding that applicant ‘did not and does not undertake all the tasks listed in the ANZSCO description for Advertising and Marketing Professionals (Group 2251)’, the Tribunal however held that the ANZSCO task description is not necessarily reflective of all the duties they company requires, or that such a specialist might undertake, in a small niche business such as theirs.

The Tribunal referred to the decision in Joshi v MIMIA and held that the sensible and correct approach requires the ascertainment of the attributes and skills of an applicant and how those attributes and skills are being applied in the workplace for remuneration.

“In reality…there may be instances where an applicant does not have experience in all the ANZSCO tasks but is highly skilled in a smaller range of tasks. Consequently, even acknowledging that the applicant’s background and experience in Italy was in a relatively small firm, and he was required to undertake a number of tasks in addition to marketing, the evidence of his current employer is that his skills are highly specialised and ideally suited to the marketing role required by his company.” Mary-Ann Cooper, Member, AATA